River Road to China

by Milton Osborne

  From the monotonously flat, humid landscape of Saigon and its twin city Cholon, Garnier wrote letters, reports and pamphlets that summoned up visions of a very different world to be found along the yet unexplored reaches of the Mekong, one of coolness and mountains, and a fresh exoticism superior to the frequently tawdry life of Saigon. From the high, unknown wastes of Tibet the Mekong River flowed down into the “chaos” of tribes and peoples who knew nothing of the Western world. If France were to penetrate into this chaotic region, Garnier argued, the Mekong could then provide a certain route for the commerce of China. Despite a total lack of positive evidence, there was no disposition, on the part either of Garnier or of others in Saigon, to doubt that riches would be found. Garnier's was only the most vocal expression of a generally assumed truth. So, he urged his countrymen to “take the measure of the unknown riches enfolded in the valleys and mountains that enclose these rivers. If one believes the travelers' tales these valleys contain active and industrious peoples who trade with the Celestial Empire. What is certain is that the Chinese province of Yunan each year sends many workers to the mines of amber, serpentine, zinc, gold, and silver that lie along the upper course of the Mekong.”

  The man who wrote these words in 1864 was twenty-five years old. The son of an army officer, Francis Garnier determined, from his earliest years, to enter the navy. His slight frame seemed insufficient to withstand the physical and mental demands to be made of it. In a century more attuned to the psychological implications of adolescent experience, it is hard not to see a connection between the nickname “Mademoiselle Bonaparte” that his physique caused his fellow naval cadets to give him, and his later intense determination to strive and to succeed. That Garnier was driven by strong inner compulsions is clear from his private correspondence. In his relations with his family he was surrounded by affection but at the same time beset by repeated efforts to frustrate his dearest wishes. His entry into the navy was opposed. Once this opposition was overcome and he had taken up his post in Vietnam, his new hope to explore the Mekong brought impassioned pleas from his mother that he should not by embracing this cause burden her with yet another “thorn for her cross.” As with the men who climbed Everest seventy years later “because it was there,” Garnier's own summary of his motives was both simple and profound. For him, he wrote in a letter to a friend, the “unknown was irresistible.”

  He must have been a difficult companion for many, if a dearly cherished friend for a few. Even in an age that was more accustomed to open emotion, despite its high esteem for stoic courage, Garnier's life seemed to go beyond the normally high expectations of heroic behavior. Once in the navy, he suffered a shattering fall to the deck of a training ship while engaged in showing that his slight stature was no handicap to madcap balancing on the peak of the mainmast. He recovered by force of will after jettisoning the prescribed medicines into his slop bucket, but was to continue coughing blood like a consumptive for years after-wards. In 1858 Garnier, by now a lieutenant, saved a shipmate who had fallen overboard from the Duperré as it sailed through the China Sea, plunging into the sea in the darkness of the tropical night without thought for the sharks that had been escorting the vessel. Impatient with authority and with the prospect of routine employment, and with a nature he himself recognized as “stormy,” Garnier seems to have been a man whose great talents did not always prevent him from being a wayward subordinate in official terms, and in personal relationships somewhat self-righteous. This latter trait, not least, made it difficult for Garnier to understand those with whom he disagreed.

  For people in the twentieth century to whom the inherent virtues of the French colonial occupation of Vietnam are less than self-evident, Garnier's aims and beliefs seem both prejudiced and presumptuous. “Nations without colonies,” he proclaimed, “are dead.” Frenchmen needed to remember that in Vietnam “we carry out the political and moral education of a people entrusted to us by Providence.” His chauvinistic vision of France's colonial goals led many to embrace his ideas, but the side of Garnier's character that made a few men hold dear his friendship as opposed to his dreams may be sensed only occasionally. Fellow colonial officials such as Eliacin Luro disagreed with many of his extravagant views but responded to the warmth of his feelings and his irrepressible enthusiasm for anything that interested him. No one can read his letters to his future wife, Claire, without sensing that this passionate man could inspire love as well as exasperation. If many of Garnier's pronouncements on empire seem almost to be caricatures of an imperial age's self-image, those addressed to his wife remind us much more of a France both delighted and scandalized by the romantic life of men such as Franz Liszt.

  By 1865 the desirability of exploring the Mekong was widely accepted. The colony's Governor, Admiral de La Grandière, had initially been hesitant about the proposal. His predecessor, Admiral Bonard, had been a supporter of the idea, but in this enterprise, if nothing else, La Grandière showed initial caution. Eventually, however, he joined the ranks of the enthusiasts both in France and Cochinchina. In mid-1865, while he was on leave in Paris, La Grandière gained the approval of the Minister for the Colonies to send an expedition up the Mekong.

  Garnier had played a vital part in bringing opinion to this point. Now he wished to be part of the expedition. At first La Grandière seemed disposed to deny him this wish. This, above all, was a case of like resisting like. La Grandière was no less an enthusiast than Garnier for France's role in the East. They shared the same prejudices, the same arrogant assumptions about France's “civilizing mission.” In short they were far too alike to confront each other easily, not least since the Admiral found the younger man overly ready to press his views beyond the point of discretion usually expected from a junior officer. In the small, introspective world of Saigon, however, Garnier's passion for the expedition could not be easily denied because of personal animus. Moreover, La Grandière was shrewd enough to recognize both Garnier's undoubted abilities and the desirability of seeing this troublesome spirit absent from Cochinchina. When La Grandière chose the personnel for the projected expedition, in the early months of 1866, Garnier's name was on the list.

  La Grandière wanted a more senior officer as leader of the expedition, however, and his choice fell on the French representative in Cambodia, Doudart de Lagrée. Age, temperament, and experience set Lagrée apart from Garnier. In 1866 Lagrée was forty-two, Garnier's senior by sixteen years. He was a graduate of France's most renowned educational institution, the Ecole Polytechnique. The two men did share one thing in common. Both were naval officers who had embraced colonial service when France invaded the Indochinese region. But before this Lagrée's much longer record of service had included distinguished participation in the Crimean campaign. Where Garnier's nature predisposed him to action, Lagrée was a much more contemplative individual. Before he came to serve in Cambodia, few periods of his life seem to have been more satisfying than an extended archeological excursion in Greece.

  Beyond the convictions that he felt concerning France's role as a colonial power, Doudart de Lagrée had a practical reason for seeking a post in Indochina. Following service in the Crimea, he had been forced, in the late 1850s, to renounce a life at sea because of a chronic throat ailment, which was aggravated by winter conditions. His choice of Indochina was in part dictated by the possibility that the warmer climate would cure his ulcerated throat. As his letters show, this was never to be: and the Mekong expedition was led by a man in frequent and sometimes severe pain from an apparently incurable condition. Yet this had no effect on Lagrée's enthusiasm and determination.

  Once in Indochina, Lagrée found his appointment one of the loneliest possible. As the French representative at the court of King Norodom of Cambodia from 1863, he had few European companions, yet his detailed letters to friends and relatives in France give little sense of this isolation being a burden. His personality contrasts sharply with that of his chief assistant. Where Garnier was forever restless, Lagrée's private an
d public character was marked by a calm acceptance of his circumstances and a general disinclination to mix emotion with duty. To be able to observe the Cambodian court and delve into the country's history was satisfying in itself.

  It is perhaps one of the most notable ironies of the Mekong expedition that Lagrée was chosen to lead it when he had already seen what might be the greatest barrier to navigation up or down the river. As early as July 1863 he had traveled up the Mekong and seen the Sambor rapids. Then, he had judged the rapids to be an “uncrossable barrier.” Yet the possibility of exploring further lingered in his mind. Even though the rapids seemed impassable when he saw them, there might be other periods of the year when a passage would be less difficult: a highly powered steam launch might overcome the force of the current at the high water season; or there might be a deeper channel that could be navigated in the calmer period during March or April before the river became swollen by the combined effect of the melted Tibetan snows and the monsoon rains.

  But while the exploration of the Mekong was being actively canvassed in Saigon, other matters demanded Lagrée's attention. Cambodia and its “kinglet” — to use Lagrée's own term — had to be brought under France's protection, and once this was achieved there was the daily need to persuade the Cambodian monarch that there were some courses of action that would gain French approval and others that would not. In these circumstances, the possibility of exploring the Mekong was interesting but scarcely overwhelmingly so for the French representative in Cambodia. Nothing makes this clearer than Lagrée's own reaction to La Grandière's proposal that he should lead a French party up the river. When in December 1865 the governor asked, “Would you not be the man to try and ascend the river for six or seven hundred leagues, to see what occurs in Tibet, in the interior of China?” Lagrée's response as the ultimately laconic “Why not?” And both men laughed.

  After the years of debate the French Mekong expedition left Saigon on June 5, 1866. At first glance, its material needs seemed adequately provided for. For costs along the way there were gold bars, Mexican dollars, and Thai coins, to a value of 25,000 francs. Packed into one hundred and fifty cases were more than five hundred kilograms of hard rations, biscuits, and twice-baked bread. There were over three hundred kilograms of flour. And since this was a French expedition, the commissary in Saigon had provided more than seven hundred liters of wine and three hundred liters of brandy. There were fifteen cases of trade goods but only one case of scientific instruments.

  These supplies were to sustain a party of six principal explorers and a secondary personnel of sixteen. Among the principals, Lagrée and Garnier, leader and second-in-command, both possessed several years of experience in the Indochinese region. This was not a qualification the other explorers, with one exception, could claim. Clovis Thorel, aged thirty-three when the expedition left Saigon, had, it is true, served as a naval doctor in Cochinchina since 1861. During this time he had shown a strong interest in botanical research, and this, in addition to his medical skills, had commended him to the expedition's planners.

  The other doctor in the party, Lucien Joubert, also gained his place because of a combination of capacities. He took the place of a mining engineer previously under consideration. At thirty-four his record of long and healthy service in Senegal plus an interest in geology proved sufficient recommendation. Another regular naval officer, Louis Delaporte, an amateur musician and better-than-amateur artist, had been based in Cochinchina less than a year when he found himself assigned to the expedition and made responsible for the pictorial record of its achievements. In 1866 Delaporte was twenty-four years old.

  Finally, and most controversially, there was the youngest member, Louis de Carné, Delaporte's junior by one year. Although selected to represent the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he clearly owed his inclusion to the fact that he was Governor La Grandière's nephew. Where Delaporte's natural exuberance acted to dissipate tensions and encourage harmony, de Carné's tautly enthusiastic personality seemed fated to give frequent offense. His mind was filled with grand plans: France's colony in the East could be the economic equivalent of the American Far West, and “Socialism” could be contained by the success of French expansion overseas. But he had little talent for friendship and found it difficult to accept the details of discipline and control in an expedition led by a military man. From the very beginning both Lagrée and Garnier made little secret of their belief that this young diplomatist had been unwisely chosen for the task that lay ahead. Indeed, at the start of the expedition, Garnier appears to have held serious doubts about all the other members except the party's leader.

  And even at this early stage there was abundant evidence of inefficient planning. If supplies seemed adequate, there is little sign in the surviving records of the expedition that any serious thought was given to how these cases were to be transported, or to how any surplus was to be returned as the group's instructions required. The same lack of planning was apparent in the designation of an escort. To the already large party of six principal explorers were added three interpreters (one French, one Cambodian, and one Laotian), four French military men, two Filipino soldiers, and seven Vietnamese militiamen. Porters and boatmen were to be found along the way. Lagrée later bitterly decried the large size of the party as a heavy burden to its leader.

  In addition, although the matter seemed less demanding at this early stage, the expedition prepared to leave Saigon without any certainly as to when its members might receive the necessary passports for travel into, and through, China. Satisfactory arrangements had been made for territories that fell under the authority of the Thai court, and it did not seem of great consequence that passports were not in hand from Burma; the Frenchmen doubted that the weakened Burmese kingdom could do much to hinder their progress. But China represented a different problem. The great state to the north was their final goal so that it would be foolish, at best, to try and enter China without proper authorization. This was even more true in the middle sixties when, as the explorers knew, southwestern China was the scene of a major Islamic revolt against the imperial authorities. To delay, however, did not any longer seem possible. Their hope had to be that the passports would soon reach Saigon and be sent on after them.

  At Angkor the explorers found the jungle had taken over most of the ruins.

  Leaving Saigon on June 5, the expedition traveled by steampowered gunboat, first to Kompong Luong, a little north of Phnom Penh, and then, more importantly, to the great ruins of Angkor. Garnier described this as “consecration” of the expedition's scientific purpose, emphasizing the extent to which Lagrée throughout his service in Cambodia had worked to record the details of the temple ruins. Yet for all the scientific detail, and less than scientific speculation that the visit to Angkor produced, these few days between June 23 and July 1, 1866, spent among the ruins had the air of a holiday. There was even a group photograph taken of the explorers ranged along one of the broad temple entrances. Reproduced as an engraving, it is a sobering reminder that this was the last period when the expedition was not beset by almost daily problems of health and purpose.

  Backtracking from Angkor, the explorers paid their visit to Phnom Penh at the beginning of July. Despite its exotic character, they, in common with other French explorers of the nineteenth century, could not believe that they saw a city ruled over by a descendant of the Angkorian monarchs. When the time came to leave Phnom Penh, the morning after Norodom's great banquet, the Cambodian interpreter, Alexis Om, refused to leave. As his first name suggests, Om was a Cambodian Christian, one of a tiny minority holding this faith in a Buddhist kingdom. Well aware that rebellion was brewing in the eastern provinces of Cambodia, he had no stomach for the adventures the Frenchmen so confidently expected would lie ahead. Despite his earlier agreement to travel with the party, he now changed his mind. But his appeals to be allowed to stay behind were ignored, and Lagrée gave orders for him to be held under guard on board the gunboat. From the leader's point of view
it was essential to have the services of all three interpreters: the Frenchman Séguin for travel in Thailand, the Laotian whom they called Alévy and whose knowledge of the distant regions north of Luang Prabang would make him invaluable as they moved nearer to China, and Alexis himself for the early stages of their travels.

  Leaving Phnom Penh early in the morning of July 7, the group traveled rapidly up the Mekong to Kratie, in the northeast of the kingdom. Here, at the limit of their gunboat's capabilities and nearly at the limit of the Cambodian King's domains and their own known world, exploration proper began. Strung out along the left bank of the Mekong, Kratie in the 1860s had a population of about five hundred. A century later it was still a distant, isolated place, only rarely visited by foreign travelers. When the Frenchmen saw the little town in 1866 the houses of the inhabitants were set against a background of dark tropical landscape, with their fruit trees and rice fields scattered behind them. Few who have not seen these regions can appreciate the general somberness that pervades upcountry Cambodia, where only the yellow robe of an occasional Buddhist monk or the straggling vines of bougainvillea present a touch of bright color against the darkness of the trees and distant hills. By mid-July, the season at which the expedition paused at Kratie, the rainy monsoon had set in, and the monotonous landscape was matched by a gray sky to further depress the spirits.